A Fatal Grace: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel: 2

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For a Quebec winter is not only staggeringly beautiful but deadly, and the people of Three Pines know better than to reveal too much of themselves. She plans to make that place hers, and in her mind, she plans to raze all that makes the place amazing.

And Gamache, who finally grasps what it meant when the 78-year-old Mother loudly “cleared the house” at the curling match, suddenly knows how the murderer got away with it.Don't look for the hamlet of Three Pines anywhere on a map of the countryside outside of Montreal, although Louise Penny has made the town and its residents so real. This may be old, but I am just reading it – I understood why they attempted suicide – it was to take the fall for Crie, but there are several loose ends in this book, such as how Cree could possibly purchase the niacin, and make this elaborate plan, not knowing about the boots and set up and traditions. In this volume I learned more about the personalities of Gamache and his team, about their past and their fears. A Fatal Grace is the second Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mystery set in the stunning countryside of Quebec.

He wasn't foolish or blind enough not to also see the homeless men and women, or the bruised and battered faces that spoke of a long and empty night and a longer day ahead. Also the story takes place at Christmas in a picture perfect town where the snow sparkles in the sun and everyone drinks hot chocolate and eats cookies. I also love the way Louise focuses on the power of words, from the literal handwriting on more than one wall, to the hidden meanings of names like Mother, Elle, and Crie (what kind of parents would name a child that? At fifty-two Saul Petrov was just beginning to notice his friends weren't quite as brilliant, not quite as clever, not quite as slim as they once were. In the midst of a killing Quebec winter, the inspector has to figure out how the woman could have been electrocuted while attending a curling match on a frozen lake.Oh, and her house is full of not only Czech but any other random eastern european relatives, because Czech, Polish, Russian, Hungarian are just all the fucking same? In thinking about it, it occurred to me that, on the one hand, you have the world of Three Pines and, on the other, for example, the world of Matthew Scudder's New York City as imagined by Lawrence Block.

I am enjoying the early stages of my Louise Penny binge, having found something that is not only unique, but captivating in its descriptive power. I don't think I could continue to read an author who would use such strong terms to describe an abused child. He'd take deep dark breaths of the night air, trying to reassure himself that the stifled yawn of his dinner companion was because of the wine or the magret de canard or the warmth in the Montreal restaurant, wrapped as they were in their sensible winter sweaters. What do you make of Gamache’s relationships with the different members of his team, from Beauvoir to Nichol? Sitting at the front of the crowd, the victim stands up, touches the chair in front of her and is promptly electrocuted.Who could have been insane enough to try such a macabre method of murder--or brilliant enough to succeed? Whether or not a character is good or bad is shown by whether they adore Gamache for his goodness, like Beauvoir, or dislike and distrust it, like Nichols. Can it be possibly be coincidence that CC’s book, Be Calm, has the same name as the meditation center Bea Mayer, known as Mother, runs in Three Pines? I enjoy her rich, layered plots, and I worry myself sick about Gamache and the forces working against him. I’m not going to discuss the plot, other than to say that the unpleasant woman who was murdered was mourned by nobody, and her impending doom is mentioned in the first sentence.

She has won numerous awards, including a CWA Dagger and the Agatha Award (eight times), and was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Novel. In this case, a particularly unpleasant woman is murdered in a very complicated and public way while attending a curling match.Sure, nobody liked CC, but who hated her enough—and had the expertise—to pull off something like that? I happen to have a special feeling for this book, A Fatal Grace, since it’s the first book I read in the series, and got me introduced to the village of Three Pines and Armand Gamache of the Montreal Surete and his crew. CC, who had a "spiritual guidance" business based on eliminating emotion, was hated by seemingly everyone, including her husband, lover, and daughter. I know that I started reading the galleys on the train on a Tuesday night, then continued on Wednesday morning, when we always have our editorial meetings.